


The Many Uses of Dirigible Plums

by shopfront



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Rewrite, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-03 20:01:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15825948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/pseuds/shopfront
Summary: Albus Dumbledore had a plan to keep Harry Potter safe. But he wasn't the only one concerned about Harry's safety, nor the only one with half an eye on the future and a suspicion about what might be brewing on the wind.The fairies spirited Harry away, and many creatures across many forests help them to raise him and teach him and keep him safe from harm. They leave behind an empty doorstep, for only Muggles believe fairies leave Changelings, and the whole of the Wizarding World is left to wonder whether he’ll ever be seen again. Except for one person.





	The Many Uses of Dirigible Plums

**Author's Note:**

  * For [primeideal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/primeideal/gifts).



When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, grey Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Dursley hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work, and Mrs. Dursley gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair.

None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window.

At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye but missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum.

It was the same routine Mr. Dursley kept every morning, including the next. Indeed, the following day went almost exactly the same from Mr. Dursley’s perspective. Except for the moment where he stepped out onto his front step and kicked over a small blanket.

“Ruddy cats,” he said, kicking the blanket again so that it slumped over into the flower bed and out of his path. “Petunia! Those blasted cats have been leaving things in the garden again!”

He glared his beady little eyes at his neighbour, Mrs. Figg, where she stood on her own front step with her hand over her mouth. Her eyes were wide with some emotion he didn’t care to name but hoped was embarrassment over what her pets kept doing to his garden. Then he got into his car and slammed the door. He waved to his wife as she appeared to farewell him and also to sniff disdainfully at the scrap of fabric, and then they all continued about their day. The same as they did every day.

As if nothing much of note had happened.

*

When Luna was very young, she asked her father about the fairies she would see dancing outside her window at night. She wanted to know what they were saying to each other, and whether they might want to be her friends. When she asked her father about them, however, he simply waved a hand and looked thoughtful.

“A far more intelligent and majestical creature is the Crumple-Horned Snorkack,” he said to her in a conspiratorial tone, smiling when she giggled. “I have far more interesting stories I could tell you about those.”

As Luna grew older, and learnt to read, she stopped asking for stories about fairies. There was plenty to be found about them from her books, and none of it was as interesting as she’d expected. Instead she focused on finding out everything she could about Snorkacks and Wrackspurts, and the more esoteric uses for the Dirigible Plums that grew outside their front door. Her father had been right, finding out about something that hardly anyone had written about was far more interesting.

But occasionally she would still look out her window and see the fairies that danced above the stream at the base of their hill, and she would wonder. So the morning when she decided to go for her first walk alone in a nearby patch of woods was a memorable one.

Luna told her father where she was going, and promised to send the Hairy-Eared Lollipers back with a message if she got herself into any trouble. Then she packed herself a picnic lunch, tucked a few of the ripest plums into a corner of her basket, and set off to follow the stream. She walked, and walked, until finally she stumbled across something interesting.

Or someone.

It seemed to be a boy, though it was hard to tell under the big shag rug wrapped around his shoulders. He was humming to himself and whacking two sticks together, occasionally pausing to whisper something to the fairy that bobbed above his shoulder. On his face was one of the oddest pair of glasses Luna had ever seen, two eyepieces of completely different shapes tied together in the middle with string and grass and what Luna suspected might be a very careful application of fairy spit and magic. One of the arms was made entirely out of a wooden stick, thinner than the ones in his hands, and wrapped around with leaves at the ear end as if to cushion it. They sat crookedly on his face, but he didn’t seem to notice and somehow they didn’t slide down his nose even when he huffed and threw the sticks down violently.

“Hullo!” Luna called.

The boy flung up his head to look at her and the fairy on his shoulder shot up in the air even faster, like a rather alarmed sort of arrow. It hovered above him for a moment and then took off, weaving quickly between the trees until it disappeared from sight.

“Oh,” Luna said, disappointed. “I was hoping to meet your friend.”

The boy just blinked. “You can see me?” he asked warily, frowning at her.

Luna just tilted her head at him. “Of course I can see you. I’m Luna. Would you like some lunch?”

When he didn’t seem to know how to answer that question, Luna shrugged and walked over. Dropping the picnic basket between them, she sat down on the grass across from him and opened the basket.

“I packed extra if you change your mind. Would you tell me about the fairies while I eat?”

Carefully reaching into the basket, the boy pulled one of the plums out of basket and stared at it. He glanced with wonder between it and Luna and back again, before finally speaking.

“I’m Harry,” he said.

Luna just smiled and pulled out a sandwich, taking a bite.

“Can I really have one of those?” he asked tentatively as she chewed.

By the time half a dozen angrily buzzing lights came streaking out of the trees to surround them, they were laughing like they were old friends. And when one of those lights eventually settled on Luna’s shoulder, by her ear, she exclaimed with delight. “They can speak!I always knew they must be smarter than my books said they were!”

Then she asked if the fairies could send a Hairy-Eared Lolliper to her house to tell her father she’d be late. Once they had, she began to pepper the boy - Harry, just Harry - with questions about how she could learn to speak fairy like he did.

*

The first thing out of Luna’s mouth - once she’d dumped her trunk in her room and run straight back out the front door after sweeping a random selection of food into her usual basket - was: “they were upset when you didn’t show up for the Sorting.”

Harry just eyed her sullenly from his perch and didn’t answer. She’d found him curled up in the higher branches of a tree, and so far he’d shown no inclination to reply or to come down and join her.

Luna peered up at him. “Do you want me to join you up there?” she asked curiously. Harry just sighed and finally jumped down without answering her. “I wouldn’t have minded. I’m not sure these shoes are very well made for climbing. But I did put sticking charms on them for when the Owlery ices over in winter, and I don’t think all the stickiness would have entirely faded away yet. I’ll probably have to renew the charm at the end of Autumn, but the third years told me it can get rather dangerous up there and sometimes first years fall over the railing so I thought it might be a good idea to practice early.”

“What’s a Sorting?” Harry asked. Luna didn’t answer right away, as she pulled a plum from her pocketand silently held it out for him to take.

“One of the Ravenclaw prefects told me that gifts should be renewed every year or the charm might fade,” Luna said once he’d taken it. "I know we missed a few years there, but I thought I'd best bring another one today to be safe."

“It doesn’t work like that,” Harry said, frowning. Luna just shrugged and stepped around him, starting to walk down the thin, winding path that led to the tiny patch of woods they now referred to as theirs. “Wait, Luna, you didn’t answer me. What’s a Sorting?”

“Something they do for the First Year students at the beginning of the school year. I know you said you wouldn’t be going with me to school, but I did wonder right up until they called your name and you still weren’t there.”

Still frowning, Harry hurried to catch up. “What, did they expect me to pop out of the trees or something?”

“Or maybe the sky. There aren’t any trees in the Great Hall. But the ceiling is enchanted to look like the sky, perhaps they thought you’d ride in on a Thestral to join us.”

Harry shrugged and tugged his make-shift jumper, a dazzling shawl with enchanted stitching this time, tighter around his shoulders. “That’s stupid. Fairies can’t teach me how to ride a Thestral, and they told me I don’t need to go to school.”

“I don’t know if they realise that at Hogwarts, Harry. You were on the Sorting list and everyone went very quiet when you didn’t appear. It didn’t bother me because I knew you’d be waiting here when I came home on break, but the others all seemed quite upset. I said they were welcome to come home with me and visit with you, but I don’t think anybody listened to me.”

“Hogwarts?” Harry asked. He scrubbed his hand across his forehead. “I thought you said you went away to school?”

Luna turned her head towards him, her eyes calm and curious. “I did. Hogwarts is a school.”

Harry huffed and kept walking, avoiding her gaze. “Maybe I could meet you there some time. The fairies said I can’t go to classes even if I want to because it’s not safe, but they also said the best pumpkins can be found at Hogwarts…. Maybe I can go with them to fetch some?”

“I’d like that,” Luna said with a smile. “I know you can’t write to me. But you could always send a Hairy-Eared Lolliper or one of the fairies to tell me when to expect you. The Forbidden Forest runs all along one side of the school grounds, I’m sure there’s somewhere we can go where nobody will see you if you don’t want them to.”

Harry was silent for a long moment, absentmindedly turning the plum Luna had given him over and over in his fingers. “No, they definitely can't see me,” he said quietly, half to himself.

*

It took a few years of long, lazy summers and too-short breaks, before Harry finally found his way to Hogwarts. Luna noticed Hagrid complaining to Professor McGonagall over breakfast one morning that there weren’t going to be any decent pumpkins left for Halloween decorations, and when she stepped outside after breakfast she noticed the distinctive tracks of a Hairy-Eared Lolliper by the path down to Hagrid’s hut.

She pointed the marks out to a classmate, but they only rolled their eyes. Not that Luna cared. It was far too bright in the sunshine to spot fairies from a distance, but she was certain now that she’d find a few familiar tiny faces in the pumpkin patch and a bigger, even more familiar face close by.

When she did spot Harry once she'd snuck out of the castle under the Invisibility Cloak that someone had gifted to her by owl in her first year, Luna was surprised by the sight of him. One half of his glasses had been replaced with part of an entirely different set, this one edged in hot pink. His usual rug or shawl had been swapped for an old tartan horse blanket that had been ripped and twisted until it could be tied around his shoulders like a cape.

Most noticeable, however, was the great big graze along his left cheek.

His eyes still lit up when he spotted Luna, though. They ran to each other, laughing, and he picked her up and spun her in a circle before he hugged her properly. His arms were nearly as warm as the charmed blanket that was wrapped around him, and she was pleased to notice far fewer Wrackspurts were dancing around his head than usual.

“You look different,” she said, and if anything his smile grew even wider.

“I’ve been with the Centaurs since you came back to school,” he said excitedly, all in a rush. “There’s a really nice one, called Firenze. He’s been teaching me archery and how to defend myself!”

Luna laughed with him again, as he lost control of his excitement and swept her up in another hug. “That sounds interesting,” she started to reply, only to go still at the sound of creaking wood. The door to Hagrid’s hut swung open, and light spilled out across the grounds.

“That you, Luna?” Hagrid’s voice boomed out. He poked his head out and smiled at her, though the corners of his eyes seemed crinkled a little in confusion. “What’re you doing down here alone at this time of night? Hunting Wrackspurts again?”

Luna watched as his eyes slid past her and over the pumpkin patch, before returning to her without pause.

“Well, just make sure you’re back up at the castle before lights out, eh? But don’t you go upsetting those fairies, mind. I don’t want them causing more damage in that patch!”

Turning first to blink at Harry, and then back to stare at Hagrid, Luna nodded. “I’ll be careful, Hagrid,” she said. Once the door had swung shut again and all was quiet, she turned back to a more subdued Harry. “He couldn’t see you.”

“No,” Harry agreed, his lips pressed together in a thin line. Then he grabbed her hand and tugged, leading her towards the trees. “Come on, he said he didn’t want anyone in the pumpkins. Now you know I’m here, I’ll ask the fairies to leave them alone again.”

“That might be best. But where are we going now?”

“Firenze set me up an obstacle course, I want you to see it. It’s wicked, the fairies have been coaxing vines to grow over it and make it harder to climb. You’re going to love it. We might even be able to tempt one of your Snorkack’s to use part of it as a nest,” he said, still tugging. Then he paused. “Though I don’t suppose any of them will want to nest there if the Centaurs and I are thumping around above their heads….”

Luna started to laugh once more, and gave Harry a little push to get him moving again. “I don’t suppose they will, but why don’t you show me anyway?”

*

The first time Luna remarked that the creatures in the forest were all in an uproar, nobody paid her much mind. Just like usual. But the third time she said it, one of the girls from Gryffindor who often let Luna sit with her in class overheard her.

“What did you mean about the creatures in the forest?” she asked over the Gryffindor breakfast table. There was an inquisitive glint in her eye and a hard line to her jaw that suggested she wouldn’t take it kindly if Luna was making fun of her.

“The dragons,” Luna just replied serenely. “Nobody is very happy about the dragons.”

Ginny let out a triumphant cry and jumped to her feet, spilling her pumpkin juice all over one of her brothers next to her who shouted in dismay and jumped up as well. A few seats down, a particularly bushy-haired fourth year lifted her gaze from a textbook just long enough to give them all a filthy look. But Ginny had already snagged Luna and her brother by their robe sleeves and was dragging them bodily out of the hall.

Luna noticed as they left that the bushy-haired girl was still watching them from the corner of her eye with a suspicious look. It all turned out to be for the best, though. A year and a half later, Luna disembarked sadly from the Hogwarts Express. After saying farewell to Ron and Ginny and pressing a carefully made turnip necklace into the confused hands of their mother, she waved to Hermione and trailed home after her father.

As they went, Luna tried to ignore the shuttered houses and empty shops they passed in Diagon Alley on their way to use the Floo at the the Leaky Cauldron. She wasn’t expecting a happy summer, not like the ones before.

But when they finally reached their home, Harry was sitting on their doorstep.

Luna watched as he snatched plums in handfuls from the bush, making Luna’s father shout as the branches shook. Before Luna could ask what Harry was doing, he was shoving handfuls of the fruit at both of them as he started talking rapidly.

“You have to go,” he said, trying to force them to turn around and head straight back down the hill despite Luna’s father coming to dead stop and staring at him. “Don’t unpack! Don’t ask questions! Firenze said- You just have to go! Except, wait-“

He cut himself short, chewing his lower lip and studiously ignoring Xenophilius as he reached out a trembling hand to push aside Harry’s fringe.

“Here,” Harry said, shoving a tattered strip of parchment at Luna while Xenophilius let out a warbling sound of shock and confusion. “Can you send this for me with your owl? To Ron and Ginny at the Burrow? I asked them to send for Hermione, too, but- Oh, well, I suppose they’ll know how to reach her better than I do, anyway.”

He let go of his iron grip on their arms as he spoke, so Luna ran inside to coo at their owl until it drifted lazily down from the attic. The Lovegoods didn’t believe in cages. Once she had hurried back out with the owl on her arm and the letter already neatly wrapped in parchment and tied to the owl’s leg, she found Harry and her father staring at each other in silence. Her father was clearly still in shock, while Harry fidgeted uncomfortably.

Harry lit up when he saw her again, though. Throwing the owl up in the air, Luna let him pull her into the hug she would normally have expected to receive in greeting. He wasn’t wearing a rug around his shoulders this time, she noticed. The careful stitching of a second-hand Muggle coat pressed against her cheek as she held him tight, and he squeezed her back before letting her go. Kissing her quickly on the cheek and giving her a long, lingering look, he then took off down the hill at a run.

“Leave right away!” he called back over his shoulder, his voice already beginning to fade away as he leapt across the stream and a dozen tiny lights leapt up to race along beside him. “Don’t tell anyone where you’re going, I’ll still be able to find you,” was the last thing she heard, his voice disappearing into the night with him.

Luna turned to her father. His mouth was still gaping as she picked up her trunk.

“I suppose we should go, then,” she said calmly, and began to lead him back the way they had come. “I have everything I need here, and my Hogsmeade allowance is still in my trunk. We can buy whatever you need as we go.”

*

Luna didn’t see much of Harry during the Battle. Oh, she saw him from a distance fighting amongst a sea of Weasley’s with plums pinned to their lapels, and she saw him racing frantically through the corridors with Hermione by his side. She even saw him as he walked slowly towards the Forbidden Forest.

The fairies bobbed along ahead of him to light his path, and the light spilling out of the castle and across the grounds glinted off the eyes and hooves and claws of the many creatures that emerged along the treeline to bow their heads and escort him deeper. Luna saw those same eyes and hooves and claws emerge again behind the Death Eaters as Harry leapt from Hagrid’s arms. They aided the witches and wizards helping Harry to pin the Death Eaters in and contain them, while the Aurors picked them off one by one.

But Harry disappeared again once it was all over. Limping, he caught her eye across the Great Hall one last time and then was gone. A fairy was on his shoulder as always, and a Centaur walked stately by his side.

“Aren’t you going to go after him?” Hermione asked quietly, after she had ushered Ron back to his family’s side.

Luna shrugged and fingered the plum resting, as always, neatly in her robe pocket. “Harry and I always know where to find each other.”

Harry didn’t, though. Find her. Luna and Xenophilius found their way back to their house, where their beautiful front door had been knocked from its hinges and their Dirigible Plum bush had been pulled up by its roots. The fruit lay squashed and rotting across the path, a lingering scent of decay that remained even after Luna had scrubbed the stones and scourgified them a dozen times.

She sat on her window still at night and watched the fairies dance above the stream, the way she hadn’t since she was a child. Her last plum she kept by her bed, carefully rolling it between her fingers each night as it wrinkled and dried. But when Ron and Ginny dropped by with red-rimmed eyes to cheer her up, she insisted that they shouldn’t worry. When Hermione wrote from Australia to ask how she could stand the waiting, Luna just told her not to feed the Wrackspurts.

And finally, on the day when the last public memorial ceremony was held; when the Wizarding World began as one to take down their shutters, and fix the remaining broken window panes. When they all gathered at Hogwarts, to look up at the scarred stone and gaze on the strings of twinkling fairies that lit up the open-air ball. On that night, Luna waited by the pumpkin patch on her own. She shooed away Neville and Padma and Hagrid one by one as they tried to keep her company.

Then she waited, until the whispers started and eyes turned towards the Forbidden Forest.

Striding through the trees, lights as always bobbing about his shoulders, was Harry. He smiled at Luna and ignored the whispers. Instead, he reached out and traced a finger over the tiny turnips hanging from her ears. Then he gently unclasped her fingers from around the dried pit that had once been a plum.

As it fell to the ground, Harry pulled her into her arms and finally, for the first time, pressed a kiss against her lips. The crowd behind them burst into chatter, but Luna couldn’t hear it. Too full of thoughts about the warmth of Harry’s mouth and the smooth silk of the fairy stitched robes under her hands.

“We won't need those anymore now,” he said quietly, before bending to kiss her again.

"That's a shame," Luna said between kisses. "I'd grown rather fond of them."


End file.
